Another Video Game Studio Bites The Dust – This Time It’s LucasArts

Disney have decided to shut down the videogame branch of the Lucas empire, scrapping LucasArts – the studio responsible for some brilliant Star Wars Games, and some really awful ones.

Let’s start with a statement, shall we? Why not. “After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games,” say Disney. “As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.” A “small team” will now take over things, as 150 jobs have been lost. This puts the highly anticipated Star Wars 1313 and First Assault games at serious risk. It will also put Disney firmly in the ‘oh man, what are you doing?’ camp, as Star Wars fans are getting increasingly worried with what’s happening to their beloved sci-fi franchise The company broke through with The Secret of Monkey Island – a point ‘n click adventure which is thought of warmly by nearly all gamers.

They also produced military simulators like Strike Fleet and Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain, combat games like X-Wing and Rebel Assault, before focusing on Star Wars games like Dark Forces, the Jedi Knight series – both of which were considered successful. It wasn’t until they started getting into the business of Kinect games that the critical responses started waning.